9to5 Mac: Apple CSAM controversy continues: Charity says company under-reporting

The UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) pointed to two apparent discrepancies in Apple’s reporting of suspected child sexual abuse materials (CSAM),

The first is the huge gulf between the number of cases reported by Apple and other tech giants, as The Guardian notes.

In 2023, Apple made just 267 reports of suspected CSAM on its platforms worldwide to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), which is in stark contrast to its big tech peers, with Google reporting more than 1.47m and Meta reporting more than 30.6m, per NCMEC’s annual report.

The second is that there were actually more CSAM convictions involving Apple services in England and Wales than the company reported worldwide.

Through data gathered via freedom of information requests and shared exclusively with the Guardian, the children’s charity found Apple was implicated in 337 recorded offenses of child abuse images between April 2022 and March 2023 in England and Wales […]

“There is a concerning discrepancy between the number of UK child abuse image crimes taking place on Apple’s services and the almost negligible number of global reports of abuse content they make to authorities,” said Richard Collard, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC. “Apple is clearly behind many of their peers in tackling child sexual abuse when all tech firms should be investing in safety and preparing for the roll out of the Online Safety Act in the UK.”